Madonna faces fine for flouting St Petersburg 'gay gag' law

Madonna will be prosecuted for speaking out for gay rights during her concert in St Petersburg last night (9 August).

The Material Girl faces a fine of 5,000 Rubles ($156) after telling fans at her MDNA gig to ‘show your love and appreciation to the gay community.’

‘We want to fight for the right to be free,’ she added.

The organizers of the queen of pop’s world tour could also be ordered to pay up to 500,000 Rubles ($15,700), according to the Gay Russia website.

St Petersburg assemblyman Vitaly Milonov has now submitted an application to file charges against her under the recently passed anti-gay 'propaganda' law which he himself authored.

‘She testified that she does not care about the legislation of St Petersburg,’ Milonov is reported to have said.

‘Today we are going to apply for an administrative offense and the court is to deliver its decision.’

The singer, who had pink wristbands distributed to the audience before her concert, dressed in black lingerie with the words ‘No Fear’ scrawled on her bare back.

‘Do we live in fear?’ she asked and was met with a resounding ‘No!’

However, the superstar’s public show of support for St Petersburg’s LGBT community was met with cynicism by gay rights activist Yury Gavrikov.

He believes Madonna should have cancelled her Russian leg of the world tour in protest and picketed the concert.

‘Madonna as an artist and many other stars are using human rights issues for them to promote shows and make money,’ Gavrikov told Gay Star News.

‘We don’t respect this idea. We wanted to protest the hypocrisy of the stars.’

He added: ‘If you want to really do something, you have to not just talk about problems, you have to do something that is politically important, powerful. Meeting with the mayor of St Petersburg or breaking out of the Russian tour is a way to attract more attention.

‘Madonna will leave St Petersburg and she will forget about all these problems’